Reg. deforestation and acid rain, I remember reading about The New York Times when some time back in the 80s it declared the danger a “scientific consensus” estimating that by 2002 all the forests would be gone! Later study then found out there was no evidence for accid rain causing deforestation and according to Sweden’s government the nitric acid (a fertilizer) in fact increased the growth of the forests.

As far as the price of gas goes, well, maybe it’ll turn out to be a good thing. We’ll see…

George,

Sorry if this offends you, but it now seems obvious to me that you’re also limited in the ability for critical thought, along with an inability to see past your myopic focus on human welfare. On top of that you have little grasp of the problems I mentioned.

While deforestation is caused by acid rain (You’re wrong George, about deforestation/acid rain despite what Sweden may say. Of course you should have given a reference to that. Frankly, I don’t think Sweden is that stupid to have made such a statement.) what I was referring to was the massive logging operations worldwide to meet growing human needs. The Amazon region has been devastated! And a simple google search turns up much evidence for the damage caused by acid rain. Don’t try to be a chemist or misinform us further, George, for it is well known that nitric acid is not a good fertilizer.

Regarding your New York Times “scientific consensus” comment, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Times sued you for libel.

As far as the price of gas goes, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that if we had fewer people to share the existing oil reserves, we wouldn’t have to pay so much for gas.

I was hoping when I came to this site that I would run into intelligent, enlightened people. Instead, George, I ran into you.

I hope you will realize you’ve made a fool of yourself and will act accordingly. You wouldn’t be on this site if I was running it, and I won’t be responding to anymore of your worthless untrue dribble.

Hello, Attaboy - you’re overreacting with these types of comments. FWIW, I also think overpopulation is troublesome, but within that whole mess, over - consumption of resources by the richest nations is probably a more immediate concern.

I agree - we are using up our resources at an alarming rate - there are millions of people in the world starving, and dying from poor living conditions, lack of basic life essentials. Ultimately, lack of education/access to health care plays a part - where people in desolate desert and jungle communities may not even know how reproduction works - or lack ability to obtain birth control for better family planning. Also playing a huge role, would be religions that forsake the use of birth control and fornicating for any other purpose besides reproduction. I think the human race has been around long enough to see that we are social creatures and enjoy being intimate with one another sometimes - not because it will produce offspring, but because it feels good, and makes us feel more connected with one another.

It also doesn’t help when you have all these “16 and pregnant” teen pregnancy reality shows which have been having the opposite reaction intended (to scare teens in to being more responsible) and almost glamorize being a teen mom. Ask one of those girls whose 15 minutes of fame is over - how much they like being a teenage mother.

Hello, Attaboy - you’re overreacting with these types of comments. FWIW, I also think overpopulation is troublesome, but within that whole mess, over - consumption of resources by the richest nations is probably a more immediate concern.

Same here, and so far you’ve offered no solution to what you perceive as the the single most important global problem. This is an oversimplication AFAIC. And your ad hominem attacks on George are unnecessary. You simply don’t know the origin of his opinions. Check them out when you have a chance. As to overpopulation and deforestation, overcrowding is only ONE of the reasons including acid rain. I do agree that overpopulation is a problem in certain areas, not in first world countries but in others effected by climate change but I do agree with George, humans are collectively better off than in the last Century.

Just to be clear here, I never said that problems such as acid rain or deforestation didn’t exist. They do. But they are not a major problem or something we cannot deal with. We face all kinds of problems all the time, and although many of them are caused by our growing population, we are still better off than we ever used to be.

The perception by some of you that humans are better off that ever before is, I feel, largely an illusion. Our well being has largely come at the expense of the rest of the world, both animate and inanimate. Barring sensational breakthroughs, our prosperity can’t go on much longer. The saying “There’s no free lunch.” comes to mind. I still don’t see anyone thinking outside the “human welfare” box.

George, you are trying to force a false dichotomy. The earth and humans are part of the same system. If one part of the system continues to put too much burden on the rest of it for the first part’s benefit, it’s quite likely that the whole system will degrade, including degradation of the part that has put the burden on. While we have developed many new techniques that have allowed great population growth, we are still using up natural resources, some of which can’t be replaced.

The problem is that neither you nor Attaboy and I can do more that make predictions based on the information available and our personal judgement of the relative importance of each factor. It’s quite likely that either you are optimistic and we are realistic or that you are realistic and we are pessimistic. Rather than arguing about which of our views are correct, it seems more useful to discuss the factors that appear to have had effects so far.

If one part of the system continues to put too much burden on the rest of it for the first part’s benefit, it’s quite likely that the whole system will degrade

Sure, that’s a possibility. GW certainly seems to be the right candidate for a major disaster, but for now putting burden on the rest of our planet has seemed to have worked towards our advantage. The acid-rain alarmists of the 80s were wrong just like was the International Planned Parenthood sterilizing people in India, and many others who saw the end of the world being near.

The data don’t lie. For now our planet is getting to be a better place to live in (for us, not for the dodo) no matter what kind of doomsday, pseudo-intellectual nonsense some ignorant alarmists like attaboy may come up with.

Ah now I remember, in the dim time of the 70’s I read Paul Erlich’s “The Population Bomb”, a prediction of overpopulation leading to mass starvation and near human extinction. I hate to sound cavalier but isn’t this in a way akin to jesus coming back any day now? Yes It’s a problem, but not THE problem. And gas prices have a lot to do with speculators arbitrarily driving up prices. Or greed in other words, not necessarily consumption.

OK, knock it off, George. Attaboy is new and I talked with him, but you should know better than to make inflammatory statements like, “ignorant alarmists like attaboy”. There’s no problem with disagreements, but insults have no place here.

And, Occam, next time you decide to drop a bomb here and there (as you have already done twice in this thread) let me know that’s what it is so that I don’t waste my time replying to your “bombs” thinking you are actually trying to engage in a conversation.

The perception by some of you that humans are better off that ever before is, I feel, largely an illusion. Our well being has largely come at the expense of the rest of the world, both animate and inanimate. Barring sensational breakthroughs, our prosperity can’t go on much longer. The saying “There’s no free lunch.” comes to mind. I still don’t see anyone thinking outside the “human welfare” box.

Our well being coming at the expense of the rest of the world, does not mean that we are not doing better than before. Perhaps you should say that you are bothered by our improved lifestyles’ detremental effect to the earth; not that we are living in a world of illusion.

What the hell are you talking about? Did you ever get to read the things he said in his post? And since overpopulation is not a threat to us he is by a definition an ignorant alarmist.

1. If you read my comment, I said I had talked to him in a PM. 2. George there are many of us who feel overpopulation IS a threat so they could also call you an ignorant optimist, however, we have to recognize that we often have different views of reality, so we should be civil and respect each other. Name calling is destructive to a reasonable discussion. If you feel the area doesn’t lend itself to discussion because you feel it’s baseless, just skip it and let those who wish to pursue it do so.

And, Occam, next time you decide to drop a bomb here and there (as you have already done twice in this thread) let me know that’s what it is so that I don’t waste my time replying to your “bombs” thinking you are actually trying to engage in a conversation.

I’m not sure to what you are referring (I’ll check back), but I usually try to be succinct so you may have wanted more explication. Don’t look at them as “bombs”.